


Steaming Cups

by rites (Rites)



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider 2013
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 04:28:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rites/pseuds/rites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were many reasons why you loved working here (though your favorite one probably comes in the shape of that one regular who comes around once a week and calls everyone "Sweetie".)</p><p>An AU where there is no Yamatai, just coffee and maybe (should the coffee gods will it) love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steaming Cups

**Author's Note:**

> Hello guys! So this is my first TR fanfiction and my second fanfiction EVER. There's not much Sam here yet but there probably will be more if by some chance I can attract some good plot bunnies. So for now have some KindofPapa! Roth.  
> I hope you enjoy! No really, I hope you do.

You’ve always loved working here, oh that you were sure of.

    You just weren’t sure why. You couldn’t tell whether it was because of the smell of roasted coffee beans and freshly baked pastries or the lull of the soft music Roth would strum up from his guitar, or maybe it was just the warm feeling that seemed to radiate from every corner, every inch of the place.

    One thing to say was, it always felt more like home than home.

    Home was a cold, empty house, a sprawling estate where only the ghosts of your memories live, (once upon a time it wasn’t, but you  don’t really like to talk about that).

    Now you live away in a stuffy apartment cluttered with everything that makes you a student. Bills and instant noodle wrappers and not to mention the books all heavy and bounded in leather that tower your room and cut shadows into your eyes. You could have lived in a more comfortable place, one more spacious, one that suited your name, your heritage.

 But that, you did not do.

 You refused to accept the only help your family could give now that they were gone and now that you’re the only one left.

   Perhaps it was an act of cowardice to run away from that, your only link to your past, but you try not to think about that. You try to think of other things, things that are more immediate and you proceed to bury yourself face-deep into them. Schoolwork, bills and part-time jobs keep you going like gasoline would to a car, and you go fast, zooming through every task trying to keep in motion, in momentum for as long as you can. Kind of like a shark, because if by any chance you stop you lose your ability to breathe, and you’re suffocating and you’re falling into your element, your mind, except this time instead of being free, you’re drowning.

Your thoughts, your memories, all of that, crashing down on you.

   So you do away with that, you push yourself hard to the point of almost breaking yourself, because if you’re too tired, you can’t really think and you can only sink into the only other thing you welcome, sleep.

And so it became a loop, a cold cycle, an eventual spiral downward. You would have turned into a living robot. You’ll have your flesh, your blood, your guts but everything that made you you,

Well that would’ve faded away over time.

And that would’ve been it for you had it not been for Roth.

 

   He reminded you of your father some, and you reminded him of your father more.

   Maybe that’s why he came back for you.

   Maybe that’s why he became the bandage that bound your broken bones and the rock that you’ve come to hold on so dearly.

He wasn’t perfect.

   There were times when he was too much like your father, leaving for weeks at an end and no explanations why. Still he came back, a little worse for wear, but back and alive and that was the difference that only really mattered. There were times when you reminded him too much of your father.

  _You're really like him,_ he would say shaking his head, _another stubborn Croft._

He would tell you tell you to pick up fewer jobs, to pick fewer night shifts, to let him support you. But a steady look in his eye and a simple shake of the head gets him to back down.

    _Crofts,_ he’d say shaking his head, _Once you lot set your eyes something, ye don’t back down, don’t ye._

And so that’s how life went with him leaving, with him coming back. Another cycle.

But then one night he walks in on you, a tired mess on the couch after a particularly hard night out working. You don’t even realize he’s there at first as your forearm’s draped over your eyes. You smell the tea though and it gives him away.

“I’m up,” you say.

“I know,” he says.

You flop your arm away and you open your eyes to see him holding a tray with two mugs; they’re steaming.

“Give me a scoot, girl.”

You sit up and give him some space to sit. He hands you a mug, steaming and all and you let the smell of it envelop you.

“I’ve gotten you a job.”

You raise a brow, “I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough to juggle with, Roth.”

He sighs and sets down his mug on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“I know, it’s just that these late night shifts are taking out a lot from ye.”

“And you’re saying a new job won’t?”

“This job is much more laid back, I think you’ll like it,” he says.

 

He wasn’t wrong.

Far from it actually.

 

“I’ll take a Crème’ Brulee and a Minty Choco.”

You jolt out of your day dream and curse internally.

“U-um, excuse me?” you stutter out.

She laughs, a light twinkling sound, “Hey take it easy, sweetie, I won't bite.”

Her laugh is contagious and you can’t help but smile despite the fact that you just embarrassed yourself in front of a customer.

 She repeats her order and you're determined. 

“Name?”

 _Sam_ , she says.

 

You take note of it.

 

 

 


End file.
